Early Browns make their point - Browns Daily Dose

Early Browns make their point with points

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the ninth in a series of stories about the Mount Rushmore-worthy people, places and things in Browns history. Today we look at regular-season games from 1946-59.

By STEVE KING

For the first time, our Browns Mount Rushmore series takes a quick left and goes off the beaten path.

Instead of people – players and, later coaches – we will now instead be focusing on games for a while (we’ll get back to people at some point). But instead of postseason games, which, with the high stakes involved, already have an aura of importance and greatness, we are looking at regular-season games.

Since there’s no way to study history dating all the way back to the Browns’ inception 74 years ago and do it justice by picking just four Mount Rushmore-worthy games, we’re going to break this down into eras.

The initial one is the first decade and a half of the club’s existence from 1946-59. Let’s take a look at the four games, in chronological order:

SEPT. 6, 1946 – BROWNS 44, MIAMI SEAHAWKS 0 – AT CLEVELAND – The Browns got off to such a rollicking start in this, their first season, including this one-sided decision in the opener on Friday night of Labor Day weekend before what was then a pro football-record crowd of 60,135. The Browns, using their speed on both offense and defense and a quick-paced tempo when they had the ball, led 10-0 after the first quarter and 34-0 at halftime, then coasted from there, delighting the big crowd and whetting the fans’ appetite for more . The Browns out-gained the Seahawks in total yards by a whopping 345-27, holding them to minus-1 yard rushing. Cliff Lewis, a Lakewood, Ohio native, started at quarterback, giving way to Otto Graham in the second quarter. Graham was a fixture in the lineup for the next decade, leading the Browns to 10 straight league championship games, with seven titles. First impressions last, as they say, and you have wonder what might have happened had the Browns lost this game. Would all of these great things still ensued? We’ll never know, because they didn’t just win, but they did so in such convincing, dominating fashion.

SEPT. 16, 1950 – BROWNS 35, PHILADELPHIA EAGLES 10 – AT PHILADELPHIA – The Browns had waited – and prepared – for this game for several years. They grew tired of the NFL’s belittling their incredible success during their four years in the new All-America Football Conference. The NFL hard-liners called the Browns a “Mickey Mouse team from a Mickey Mouse league.” Once the AAFC disbanded after the 1949 season and they were one of three teams from it absorbed into the NFL, the Browns were chomping at the bit to prove their doubters wrong. Sensing the attractiveness of this marquee match-up and the boost it could give the NFL as it tried to steal some of the spotlight from major league baseball, the schedule-makers acquiesced, pitting them against the two-time defending champion Eagles on the road. And, just to make sure that everyone in the country could see the onslaught, the game was slated on Saturday night, before the rest of the teams opened the season the following afternoon. An onslaught did indeed occur, but not in the way that everyone other than the Browns expected. The Browns ran back the opening kickoff for a touchdown, but it was negated by a phantom penalty that was called 40 yards behind the returner. The Browns shook it off, however, and took the Eagles apart. After the Eagles opened the scoring with a field goal, the Browns answered with four consecutive touchdowns, the first three on Graham passes and the final one on a Graham run. Graham threw for 346 yards and the Browns amassed 487 total yards, 221 more than Philadelphia. Eagles head coach Earle “Greasy” Neale was not impressed, though, pointing to all those passing yards and saying afterward that the Browns beat his team with “finesse plays.” He said the Browns couldn’t have beaten the Eagles if they had to “man-up” and play “real” football, as in relying on their running attack. This angered Browns head coach Paul Brown, so much so, in fact, that in the rematch 2½ months later at Cleveland, he had his team run the ball on all 41 of its offensive plays. Not a single pass was thrown. The result was the same, as the Browns won 13-0. Again, the question is this: The Browns put so much emphasis on that opener. They knew they needed to make an impression and they did, using it to get off to a 4-1 start. But what if they had lost that game? Would all of that success – they won the NFL title that first year — still followed? Once more, we’ll never know.

NOV. 25, 1951 – BROWNS 42, CHICAGO BEARS 21 – at CLEVELAND – The early Browns were stacked with future Pro Football Hall of Famers, but they were deep as well in that they had plenty of other very good players. And that latter point was exemplified by what happened in this easy win over the Bears, as running back Dub Jones tied an NFL record set by the great Ernie Nevers of the Chicago Cardinals in 1929, and tied by the Bears’ Gayle Sayers in 1965, by scoring six touchdowns – four running and two passing. Yes, the Browns were an all-star team, great from top to bottom, and everywhere in between.

DEC. 6, 1953 – BROWNS 62, NEW YORK GIANTS 14 – at CLEVELAND – The Giants were, by far, the Browns’ biggest rivals for the first decade and a half that Cleveland was in the NFL (1950-65). Being in the same conference, the teams played each other twice a year, ever year. In that first season of 1950, the Giants beat the Browns twice, handing them their only regular-season defeats. The clubs tied for the American Conference title, necessitating a special playoff, which Cleveland won 8-3 to advance to the NFL Championship Game. The Browns lost twice again to the Giants in 1952 on their way to winning the conference title, And in their first meeting in 1953, the streaking Browns had their closest game to date, winning just 7-0. The Browns had already clinched the conference championship by the time they played the Giants in the next-to-last game of the regular season. That the Giants were struggling didn’t matter. What did matter was the opportunity to stick a dagger into the hearts of their arch rivals – and to do so convincingly and on their home field of the Polo Grounds. The Browns took full advantage of it, blowing out to a 31-7 halftime lead and then increasing it to 55-14 after three quarters en route to setting a team record for NFL play that still stands. Pete Brewster caught three touchdown passes as the Browns threw for 389 yards and had 495 total yards. The point – and points, as it were — had been made.

NEXT: Regular-season games from 1960-69.

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